Monster agate found on East Beach

Kazmin Kricheldorf has found a lot of agates, but never one like this. While out on East Beach with her family earlier this month, Ms Kricheldorf spotted an interesting-looking rock on a stretch of shoreline just north of Eagle Creek. It turned out to be an enormous, creamy-coloured, agate. She had never seen one that big, and neither had her parents. At home on Tow Hill Road, she put it on the scale. It weighs more than your average newborn baby: 10.8 pounds, or almost five kilograms. Ms Kricheldorf brought the monster agate to the Masset hospital this week to show one of the patients, and it ended up on display briefly at the nurses’ station, where it attracted many astonished looks. The 18-year-old, who graduated from G.M. Dawson Secondary last year, said she doesn’t scour the beach for agates the way some people do, but has found some big ones. “I go to the beach a lot, I find them but I don’t look for them,” she said. “It’s funny because I can’t see the little ones.” The big agate is currently on a table in the family’s living, but Ms Kricheldorf said she’s thinking of taking it to Crystal Cabin gallery in Tlell to see what owner Dutes Dutheil thinks of it. “It would be interesting to see what’s inside,” she said.